Six current and former officials say federal agents found evidence suggesting that U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, the man she married in 2009, were siblings, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Andrew Luger, whose 2016 letter Omar used to dismiss the allegations, told the Times that the letter “was never meant to say anything about the substance of the claims.”
The Dallas Express previously covered reports of DNA evidence in the investigation on October 20 and examined a British marriage certificate connected to the allegations on October 23.
The letter Omar cited
Luger, then the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, wrote that his office was not investigating Omar and had not requested an investigation. His letter answered an erroneous report that his office had sought the inquiry.
Omar portrayed the letter as putting to rest “flat-out falsehoods,” the Times reported.
The Times did not disclose the specific evidence supporting the officials’ account.
Earlier inquiry faced a charging deadline
Omar legally married Elmi, a British citizen, on February 12, 2009. The couple divorced in 2017, the New York Post reported.
FBI and Department of Homeland Security agents investigated the marriage in 2016. Prosecutors determined that the five-year deadline for a marriage-fraud charge had already expired, the Post reported.
The existence of that inquiry and its statute-of-limitations problem were public in 2021. The Post’s reporting that year included a recording in which FBI Special Agent Joy Hess said the deadline had expired and Elmi’s move overseas prevented agents from interviewing him.
Broader investigation follows home search
Federal agents searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., home on October 12 as part of the current investigation. Investigators are also examining her family’s immigration history and whether she qualified for citizenship through her father in 2000, the Post reported.
“The Congresswoman has done nothing wrong,” her office said in an October 12 statement.
Spokesperson Jackie Rogers again rejected the sibling-marriage allegation Thursday and called it a political smear, the Times reported.
